Bubbl.us, Inspiration & Education Oasis (CEd0525 - Wk 3)

I really enjoyed Bubbl.us! It is so easy and intuitive when you start using it and you actually start using it before you even need to register. Registration is VERY simple and there’s no opening an email link to activate the account and once registered, you are able to collaborate and share in addition to saving the sheets and graphics you are working on. The collaboration element may be one of the stronger points for Bubbl.us as it reminds me very much of GoogleDocs and the ease with which students can work together. One of the major limitations seemed to be the inability to add transition/connector words between bubbles. In addition, the sheet seems to readjust in a strange way; when I’m attempting to spread out the graphic and move one bubble, the remaining bubbles snap to a predetermined grid, making the move of the first bubble pointless. Overall, this tool reminds me of a watered down version of Inspiration which doesn’t offer collaboration, but includes images and connectors.

Inspiration seems to offer much more to the user in terms of flexibility and whereas this may be desirable, it can often lead students to focus more on the presentation of the information, rather than the information and content itself. This potential drawback would have to be balanced with the advantages of clip art, graphics, and connectors that are available in this program. Another drawback is that Inspiration is a software package and Bubbl.us is completely free to access and use.

Finally, the Education Oasis site offers free “canned” graphic organizers for a variety of applications. This is the least flexible of the options explored here but it represents the many areas that graphic organizers can be utilized. An educator can also use this data bank of organizers as a jumping off point to show students what organizers can look like or to show how one can take the idea behind a particular organizer and modify it for another purpose. There is no registration to use the organizers on the site and they are all linked as PDF files that include copyright restrictions.